


Lifeline

by LookingForDroids



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Marsti: Do the Medic Thing, Minor Character Death, Not all heroes fight clowns, POV Second Person, Spoilers, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27770587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: Bronya picks up the pieces, and Marsti takes help where she can find it.(Major spoilers for the end of Hiveswap: Act 2)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	Lifeline

Your name is Bronya Ursama. You’re sitting in bloodstained mud by the side of a river, surrounded by twisted scrap that used to be a train. There’s a corpse in your arms, and you’re crying. 

There’s no time for that, you think. It’s hard to remember what you should be doing instead, but habit cuts through the numbness of shock: take stock of the crisis. Put the facts in order.

1\. There was a crash. You don’t know the cause, or the extent of the damage.   
2\. You don’t know if your jades are alive.  
3\. The dead girl isn’t one of them.  
4\. The dead girl is an oliveblood, and you know that because –

It should have been you. _It should have been you._

5\. There’s someone approaching.

You can hear her sloshing through the shallows with an unsteady, limping gait. Her sturdy boots stop a pace away from where you’re sitting, but you don’t move.

“There was no saving her,” the girl says, and then you look up at her – too abruptly, and pain shoots through you, distant despite the ragged gash you can feel in your side and the blood soaking your uniform. She flinches when you lift your head, but doesn’t step back. You can hear her take a steadying breath, and see the slight rise and fall of her shoulders, the almost-hidden tremor in her hands. She’s tied a makeshift compress against her side, but burgundy blood is already seeping through the cloth. She ignores it. So do you.

That would be easier if you knew her name, but you don’t, so you focus on details. She’s tall, older than you, dressed in heavy work clothes and wearing clean gloves. There’s a bruise on her face and a pair of broken goggles hanging loose around her cranial support column, and she looks smart enough to know she should leave you alone, but she doesn’t. All she does is crouch down to meet your eyes and say, with ruthless gentleness, “With a wound like that, it was probably better that she died quickly.”

You don’t have anything you can say to that. She isn’t wrong, but you know the difference between mercy and survival and things just happening without any choice at all. 

“I know they give you some medical training in the Caverns,” the girl says. “Can you help me with the wounded?”

It’s a question, not a request. You think hard about the answer, but all you’re sure of is that you _can_ think, and that means you’re not dead. Your thinkpan hurts. There’s blood beneath your claws. You might be the strongest one still standing. You take a shuddering breath, unclench your fingers from the dead troll’s shirt, and lay her down beside the river.

6\. It should have been you.  
7\. It _wasn’t._

When you look up again, the girl is still waiting, but you know she can’t afford to wait much longer. You let her help you to your feet, and put your newly glowing hands to work.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’m not sure anyone other than Joey and Xefros and maybe some clowns could have survived that ending, but trolls are tough and I choose to believe. 
> 
> ... Anyway, Marsti definitely ditched the grody apron and her old gloves, and sanitized herself as much as possible before getting near any open wounds.


End file.
